AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It seemed that he did, too. Except for insisting that they regularly drink water, he kept her in his arms. Even when he finally tired and had to take a break from lovemaking, he remained nestled within her body. Elizabeth was too tired to think; all she could do was feel. Quinlan had so completely dominated her senses that she would have been alarmed, if she hadn’t seen the same drugged expression in his eyes that she knew was in hers. This wasn’t something he was doing to her; it was something they were sharing.
They dozed, their sweaty bodies pressed tightly together despite the heat.
It was the wash of cool air over her skin that woke her, shivering.
Quinlan sat up. “The power’s back on,” he said, squinting up at the overhead lights that seemed to be glaring after the long hours without them. He looked at his watch. “It’s eleven o’clock.”
“That’s too soon,” Elizabeth said grumpily. “They said it would be this afternoon.”
“They probably gave themselves some extra time in case something went wrong.”
Feeling incredibly exposed in the artificial light, Elizabeth scrambled into her clothing. She looked at her discarded panty hose in distaste and crumpled them up, then threw them into the trash.
“What do we do now?” she asked, pushing her hair back.
Quinlan zipped his pants. “Now we go home.”
“How? Do we call the guard service?”
“Oh, I’ll call them all right. Later. I have a few things to say. But now that the power’s on, I can get us out of here.”
While he tapped into the security system,Elizabeth hastily straightened the furniture, shoving it back into place and restoring all the cushions to their original sites. A blush was already heating her face at the possibility of anyone finding out about their love nest, literally in the middle of the lobby. She didn’t know if she would ever be able to walk into this building again without blushing.
Quinlan grunted with satisfaction as he entered a manual override into the system that would allow him to open the side door. “Come on,” he said, grabbing Elizabeth’s hand.
She barely had time to snatch up her purse before he was hustling her out of there. She blinked in the blinding sunshine. The heat rising off the sidewalk was punishing. “We can’t just leave the building unlocked,” she protested.
“I didn’t. It locked again as soon as the door closed.” Taking her arm, he steered her around the corner and across the street to the parking deck.
Before she could react, he was practically stuffing her into his car. “I have my own car!” she said indignantly.
“I know. Don’t worry, it isn’t going anywhere. But we don’t know that the electricity is on all over the city, and we don’t know what kind of situation you’ll find at your place. Until I know you’re safe, I’m keeping you with me.”
It was the sort of high-handed action that had always made her uneasy in the past, but now it didn’t bother her. Maybe it was because she was so sleepy. Maybe it was because he was right. For whatever reason, she relaxed in the seat and let her eyes close.
He had to detour a couple of times to reach her apartment, but the traffic was surprisingly light, and it didn’t take long, not even as long as normal. She didn’t protest when he went inside with her. The electricity was on there, too, the central air conditioning humming as it tried to overcome the built-up heat.
“Into the shower,” Quinlan commanded.
She blinked at him. “What?”
He put his arm around her, turning her toward her bedroom. “The shower. We’re both going to take a nice, cool shower. We’re in good shape, but this will make us feel better. Believe me, we’re a little dehydrated.”
Their bargain had been only for the night, but since it had already extended into the day, she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to carry it a little further. She allowed him to strip her and wasn’t at all surprised when he undressed and climbed in with her. The shower spray was cool enough to raise a chill, and it felt wonderful. She turned around to let it wash over her spine and tilted her head back so the water soaked through her sweat-matted hair.
“Feel good?” he murmured, running his hands over her. She would have thought that he was washing her, except that he wasn’t using soap.
“Mmm.” He bent his head and Elizabeth lifted hers. If only she could stay this way, she thought. Kissing him, being kissed by him. His hard arms locked around her. Feeling him so close, all worries pushed aside…
The cool shower was revitalizing in more ways than one. Abruptly he lifted her and braced her against the wall, and she gasped as he drove deep into her. There was nothing slow about it this time;
he took her fiercely, as wild as he had been the day before on the floor of the lobby, as if all those times in between had never been.
Later they went to bed. She could barely hold her eyes open while he dried her hair, then carried her to the bed and placed her between the cool, smooth sheets. She sighed, every muscle relaxing, and immediately went to sleep, not knowing that he slipped into bed beside her.
Still, she wasn’t surprised when she woke during the afternoon and he was there. Lazily she let her gaze drift over his strong-boned features. He needed to shave; the black beard lay on his skin like a dark shadow. His hair was tousled, and his closed eyelids looked as delicate as a child’s. Odd, for she had never thought of Quinlan as delicate in any way, never associated any sort of softness with him. Yet he had been tender with her, even in his passion. It wasn’t the same type of gentleness Eric had displayed; Eric had been gentle, she realized now, because he hadn’t wanted any responding passion from her. He had wanted her to be nothing more than a doll, to be dressed and positioned and shown off for his own ego. Quinlan, on the other hand, had been as helpless in his passion as she had been in hers.
Her body quivered at his nearness. Still half asleep, she pushed at him. His eyes opened immediately, and he rolled onto his back. “What’s wrong?”
